Chapter 3634: Bullying Too Much

Wu Bolin traveled south through the bitterly cold polar night of Antarctica; although the extreme cold had little effect on him, sprinting at top speed in such conditions consumed enormous amounts of stamina and spiritual energy.

Originally he could have stopped after a few dozen kilometers and immediately begun digging an ice shelter, but he genuinely feared the U. S. military's firepower, worried that one careless mistake would doom him here, so he ran nearly two hundred kilometers in one breath before choosing a spot where not even a penguin could be seen, then used his sword qi to forcibly cleave an ice cave about one meter in diameter and roughly thirty meters deep.

After splitting open the ice cave, he shattered all the excavated ice shards into ice crystals the size of sand grains, which quickly melted into the falling snow and vanished.

Immediately afterward, Wu Bolin jumped inside; to maximize safety, he used spiritual energy to melt part of the cave wall ice, then lifted that ice with spiritual energy to the cave entrance.

The severe cold of minus sixty degrees quickly refroze the levitated water into ice, and Wu Bolin, like a silkworm, sealed himself inside a cocoon.

His plan was simple: he would simply wait here until Antarctica's summer arrived; as for exploring Antarctica, this year he could only put it on hold, otherwise, with his remaining limited spiritual energy, exploring all over Antarctica would not last long at all.

This also reflected Wu Bolin's style of conduct: better to abandon halfway than to recklessly adventure.

After completing all this, Wu Bolin floated down to the bottom of the thirty-meter-deep cave, sat cross-legged, held his breath, focused his mind, and prepared to enter meditation.

Upon entering meditation, he could not only abstain from grain, but even air was entirely unnecessary; even if the U. S. military conducted carpet searches without professional equipment, they could not possibly discover his whereabouts.

Before entering meditation, Wu Bolin looked up.

Although it was polar night outside, the aurora was brilliant, and the thirty-meter-thick ice layer could not block all light; combined with the complex internal structure of ice, the faint aurora seeping in underwent irregular refraction, giving the surroundings a somewhat dreamlike quality.

Reflecting on these days of fruitless effort, he involuntarily let out a soft sigh, inwardly admonishing himself: do not fully immerse in meditation, lest too much time pass in the outside world; he must wake up periodically to avoid missing Antarctica's summer.

……

Kikuchi Kōhei and the others were not taken back to Japan's Shōwa Antarctic Research Station, but were instead directly escorted to the United States' McMurdo Antarctic Research Station.

At McMurdo Station, he and the other team members were isolated and interrogated; the interrogators were U. S. military personnel, and even Watanabe Gorō had no chance to approach the interrogation room, let alone participate in the interrogation.

The content of the U. S. military interrogation was also simple, with two core questions: first, why they had gone to great lengths to conceal their movements from their homeland; second, what exactly they were conducting a large-scale search for in Antarctica.

Kikuchi Kōhei bore the blame alone; his explanation was simple: everyone obeyed him, and it was he who had them conceal everything; as for what they were searching for, it was equally simple: to search for gold mines, to extract gold ore.

After hearing this, the U. S. military felt their intelligence had been severely insulted.

Mining gold ore in Antarctica? Damn it, is there even a commercially viable gold mine here?

Even if there were, this place is probably the hardest on Earth to mine gold from? Without drilling through several kilometers of ice, what would you use to extract gold from the rock layer? But if you wanted to drill through several kilometers of ice, the cost would likely far exceed any profit the gold mine could generate.

Moreover, the Japanese research team simply did not have such comprehensive drilling equipment! According to data provided by Japan's Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Shōwa Station's drilling equipment has a maximum drilling depth of no more than two kilometers, and this equipment can only extract ice cores from two kilometers deep, incapable of drilling into rock; how could this thing be used to survey and exploit current conditions?

Furthermore, even if this equipment could drill into rock, it could not enable bulk mining; the drill bit diameter is only 122 millimeters, about the width of a bowl; relying on such a small hole, even if gold ore were found, bulk extraction would be impossible, let alone recouping costs, not even the equipment's fuel expenses could be recovered.

Therefore, the U. S. military unanimously concluded that Kikuchi Kōhei was definitely lying, that he must be concealing the true purpose.

Thus, these U. S. military personnel began to break down the other research team members one by one.

Yet they exhausted every kind of interrogation method, but could not pry open these people's mouths; these people were even less pliable than Kikuchi Kōhei, who at least could fabricate nonsense to insult their intelligence, while the other research team members simply refused to speak, no matter what; in their subconscious, regardless of whether you wanted to kill or chop them, they would absolutely not reveal the truth about a real person.

This is the powerful effect of psychological suggestion.

It causes people to abandon everything, taking the content of the psychological suggestion as their sole standard.

Immediately afterward, the U. S. Navy SEALs assembled at McMurdo Station.

Modified military transport planes landed above the ice cap, soldiers boarded immediately, and headed for the Japanese research station.

Watanabe Gorō requested to accompany his own persuasion team aboard the transport plane to Shōwa Station, but was refused by the U. S. military commander.

He told Watanabe Gorō: "Now, the United States military has fully taken over this incident; you can only stay at McMurdo Station, you must not interfere in this incident; as for your Shōwa Station side, our military personnel will conduct a full takeover."

Watanabe Gorō felt angry and demanded: "Why?! This is our Japanese affair, our people, our research station, our personnel have also come, why are we not allowed to intervene?"

The other party countered: "If this is your own affair, why are you asking our United States military for support? Don't forget, it is we who dispatched the transport planes, armored vehicles, and Navy SEALs for this matter, so our taking over this affair is entirely natural; letting you stay at McMurdo Station is already special treatment, otherwise we would immediately send you back to our base in South America, so you could return directly from there to your country!"

Watanabe Gorō wanted to cry but had no tears.

What the hell is this? Our own affair, and yet we ourselves have no qualification to intervene.

The key is that the United States' attitude is truly overbearing; I am currently in Antarctica, not in the United States as an illegal immigrant, and these U. S. military soldiers are not personnel of U. S. ICE; on what grounds are they treating us like this?

He was unconvinced, and via satellite phone requested instructions from his superior.

Upon hearing this, his superior was also furious, feeling the nation's glory was about to be lost here, so he told Watanabe Gorō: "I will immediately demand the foreign ministry protest to the United States; you hold on a little longer, this matter must absolutely not be allowed to let the United States fully take over!"

Watanabe Gorō said: "They are already assembling the Marine Corps right now, planning to seize everyone at Shōwa Station and bring them here; I simply cannot stop them!"

"Too excessive!" his superior angrily said: "The United States is truly bullying people excessively; I will now protest to the cabinet, no matter what, we cannot allow them to unilaterally take over our research station!"

Watanabe Gorō said: "Then I will await your good news."

Just as his words fell, Watanabe Gorō suddenly heard someone shouting in English: "Call a doctor! Kikuchi Kōhei hanged himself!"